1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for operating a menu, and more particularly to a method for operating a menu of a multimedia disk on a computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
As computer technology advances, the most common computer systems are not only equipped with functions including word processing, data storage and internet connection, but also able to play audio-visual files due to the fact that manufacturers of the computer systems are dedicated to integrating multimedia applications into the computer systems.
The audio-visual files are usually stored in disk storage media including compact disks (CDs), video CDs (VCDs) and digital video disks (DVDs) to better store and retrieve said files which can be played by DVD players. Aside from the above, a user may employ an optical disk drive of a computer to read optical disks and to play the audio-visual files on the computer directly by means of multimedia playback software.
A method for operating the DVD player greatly differs from that for operating the optical disk drive because the DVD player and the optical disk drive support different software and hardware. To play the optical disks on the DVD player, the user may press keys on a remote controller to play, fast-forward, or pause the audio-visual files. Likewise, the keys on the remote controller can be used to shift or select items on a disk menu. On the other hand, as the user plays the optical disks via the computer system, a mouse may be adopted for said operation. Through a playback interface provided by the multimedia playback software, the audio-visual files saved in the optical disks are able to be played. Since no standard of operating the mouse is determined in the DVD specification, the manufacturers of the DVDs are able to define actions corresponding to the operation of the mouse by themselves when the DVDs are fabricated. Thereby, the user can operate the menu by using the mouse as the DVDs are played on the computer.
However, with the progress of blue-ray technology, a high-definition (HD) DVD has been used to store data. The difference between the DVDs and the HD DVDs lies in that definitions associated with the operation of the mouse have been given in the specification of the HD DVDs. Thus, in order for the user to play the HD DVDs with use of the mouse, a set of actions for operating the mouse has to be defined based on the disk menu and burned in the optical disks. However, defining the set of the actions to operate the mouse for each optical disk raises the software designing costs. Moreover, if the manufacturers of the HD DVDs do not configure any action for operating the mouse, the actions of operating the mouse cannot be identified by the programs of playing the files when the user intends to play the HD DVDs on the computer. That is to say, the user is not able to operate the menu of the HD DVD by means of the mouse, resulting in inconvenience to the user.